PG & E has band play “Come Fly With Me” in order to promote the new energy standards

By Shayna Kapadia | Staff Writer

At 9:30 AM Saturday morning Irvington’s marching band gathered on the lawn of Gomes Park to perform Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me” for PG&E’s commercial to promote the new energy policy, Title 24.

Although an official payment amount has not been decided upon, the commercial is giving marching band an opportunity to collect much needed funds for their program.

Tuba player Emily Tran stated, “Their willing to pay us quite a tidy sum for our services…It’s going to be really good for the band program because were really hurting for money right now.”

This payment will go towards covering expenses for new uniforms. Although new pants have been ordered, there aren’t enough full uniforms to accommodate the large number of students in marching band.

“We have some students wearing a just a blue shirt so they can at least blend in,” said Mr. Rodda. “The money will help us buy enough to accommodate the increasing number of students in marching band.”

The commercial deal was instigated by Mr. Rodda’s wife who had been consulting with PG&E about marketing the new energy standard.

“The PG&E director who she was working with was in marching band when she was in high school so my wife started talking about the marching band and said ‘Hey, why don’t we have the marching band do it’”, said band teacher, Mr. Rodda.

The energy company decided to have the band play the song “Come a Fly With Me” by Frank Sinatra.

“They’re trying to get their customers to comply with this new policy called T-24, so ‘Come Fly With Me’ becomes ‘Comply With Me’,” said conductor Tiffany Jann.

The pun on the song’s title was printed on a purple banner to be displayed by two girls, Yunmin Park and Sabrina Leong.

Also, the band members formed the words “COMPLY” and “T-24” while playing the song. However, because band was spread out, the cameramen had to film from atop their truck in order to get the whole word in the shot.

After about half an hour, filming was complete and the band headed back to their trailer to change.

“Today was tiring but really fun…It was exciting to be in a commercial because I’ve never done it before,” said flute player Nina Chang. “My favorite part was practicing and making the song better and better and making the shapes because it’s a really cool idea to use people to make letters.”

Mr. Rodda remarked, “I think it went really well, everybody seemed to be really happy with it.”